C Plot
by arliddian
Summary: Abed always assumed that the kiss he'd shared with Annie was a one-time thing. After all, they're a C-plot at best, right? Abed/Annie one-shot.


**C-Plot**

* * *

**Summary: **Abed always assumed that the kiss he'd shared with Annie was a one-time thing. After all, they're a C-plot at best, right? One-shot.  
**Author's Note:** I only recently got into _Community_ (I know, incredibly late to the party, and I'm still yet to watch season 3 since I'm getting it for Christmas!) but I have fallen completely in love with it and Abed especially, and the idea of Abed/Annie is just so cute to me. So here! Have some fic!  
**Disclaimer:** Don't own it; don't sue me.

* * *

It's been happening a lot lately.

He always assumed that the kiss he and Annie had shared during the paintball game was a one-time thing, just a perfectly-scripted scene in a dramatic end-of-year special. She had been playing the Leia to his Han Solo; they had been sacrificing themselves for the cause. The context had demanded it. That was all.

The thing is, these days a lot of similar contexts seem to be popping up. And they all end with them kissing.

She doesn't seem to mind. In fact, he knows that she enjoys it: it's there in the flush of her cheeks, her sidelong smiles, the coy flutter of her lashes, the fact that she no longer tells him to knock it off. He's pretty sure they aren't doing anything that will mess up the group dynamic, because he's always in character (and so is she, usually), nobody ever sees them, and things always go back to normal straight after it happens.

But still. He knows that it isn't supposed to keep happening. They're Abed and Annie. Platonic friends and roommates. A romantic storyline has never been part of the script for them. She might be the girl-next-door, but he's not exactly a leading man. These... encounters, while fun and always situation-appropriate, probably shouldn't be continuing. They're a C-plot at best.

But that doesn't explain why she's been going along with all of his re-enactments with much more enthusiasm than she used to. Or why they always seem to end up together no matter what kind of crazy situation the group finds itself in.

Or why he now only picks characters that he knows will sweep her off her feet.

* * *

He and Annie are on reconnaissance, sneaking through City College on a mission to retrieve the kidnapped Luis Guzmán statue. They creep up to the window of the biology lab, and bingo - there's the prize, guarded and booby-trapped and waiting for them. They crouch back down, out of sight.

He turns to her and readjusts his fedora, one eyebrow raised, a Harrison Ford smirk on his lips. He has the perfect line ready, but as soon as he opens his mouth, she stops him with a hand on his arm, and her expression is one he doesn't quite understand.

"Wait, Abed. Can you just be... you? Just for a minute?" she asks, a small crease appearing in the middle of her forehead. Her mouth is turned down a fraction at the corners, so he knows it's something serious.

"Oh. Yeah, okay." He looks down for a second, tilts his head. When he looks up again, the smirk is gone and his usual blank countenance is back. "What's up?"

She holds his gaze for a long time, her lips pressed together and her eyes open wide like she's nervous. Or maybe she's feeling sick? He's not sure. His brow furrows slightly.

"Annie? Are you okay? Do you need-"

He doesn't get to finish, because she cuts him off with her lips.

It's a plot twist that takes him completely by surprise, and at first he can't respond to her kiss except by opening his eyes even wider.

He places his hands on her arms, all set to push her away and explain that this isn't part of their storyline, that their genre is supposed to be more sitcom than soap opera, but as soon as his fingers meet her skin, she makes a tiny, soft, sighing sound. And, okay, Abed is a man and not a robot or a coat rack, and it hits him that Annie is kissing _him_, Abed, not Han Solo or Don Draper or Indiana Jones, and he finds his eyes closing and his lips softening under hers and then he's kissing her back and sliding a hand into her hair at the nape of her neck.

They pull away at the same time, both breathing a little heavily and staring at each other with wide eyes. She's watching him anxiously, like she's scared he's going to completely freak out or shut down or something, but he's still present. He's just not saying anything. Her kiss has successfully short-circuited his brain and he has no idea how to react. He's sure he's seen a hundred movies and TV episodes where two good friends have hooked up, but he cannot for the life of him remember any appropriate follow-up lines. And anyway, in those kinds of shows there are always a thousand blatantly obvious hints that the pair will end up together, and this is real life, not a movie or a TV show.

She reaches up and her fingers graze his cheek. He surprises himself by leaning ever-so-slightly into her touch.

"I like it best when you're you," she says, her voice barely above a whisper and her lips curved in a bashful smile. And with that, she drops her hand, turns, and scuttles off towards the rendezvous point.

He stares at her retreating form for a heartbeat, his skin and lips still tingling slightly from the contact with hers.

Okay. So maybe he'd misread the signs. Maybe he missed all the foreshadowing. And maybe this thing between them has always been more than just a C-plot.

Abed smiles.

"Cool," he says, scrambling after her. "Cool, cool, cool."

_Fin_


End file.
